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The X-Files Season 6 Review

The sixth season of The X-Files continued the show’s evident decline in quality with only a few stellar episodes and too many clunkers to bear.

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“Like the dish!“

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The first of 22 episodes is The Beginning. It is a pretty good opener that features some creepy horror sequences and a well utilized alien threat. Drive is particularly effective in its premise where Mulder is trapped in a car that is being driven by a dangerous man and Scully has to help him. It’s a very unique premise well executed and it was refreshing seeing the reversal in the damsel in distress formula.

Triangle is a period piece and a time travel storyline that doesn’t quite work. It’s overdone both stylistically and thematically, though bonus points go to the originality on display of course. Dreamland and Dreamland II represent everything that is problematic about this season – the overwhelming humor. Mulder switches bodies with an older man and the results are “funny”. Whenever the show focused on humor instead of thrills, it fell on its face, and that unfortunately happened a lot during this season.

How the Ghosts Stole Christmas is another comedic episode in this streak of humorous storylines that weren’t amusing in the slightest to me. In fact, they were very annoying and filler-like. Terms of Endearment is a demon episode that is somewhat effective and very visually striking. The Rain King is rather forgettable while S.R. 819 is a solid episode that doesn’t wholly work, but it’s always great seeing Skinner get his own episode.

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Tithonus is a fantastic episode that is one of the sixth season’s best. It features a phenomenal premise superbly realized and a creepy villain that really works. Some of the imagery is disturbing and iconic here. Two Fathers and One Son both worked to a degree. These canon episodes are effective in a vacuum, but in the larger scope of things they never amounted to anything, especially at this late moment in the show’s run.

Agua Mala is far from the best Monster of the Week stories as it’s quite forgettable and uninspired. Monday is a terrific time loop episode where a woman experiences the same day over and over again. At this point in time, these stories weren’t too familiar, so this episode was quite intriguing in that regard.

Arcadia is also one of the best episodes of the season as it for once is actually quite funny. Seeing the two act as a married couple was instantly hilarious, but the framing of a story within the cursed town scenarios worked wonders in making it feel both cozy and creepy. Alpha has a memorable side character in the form a female dog breeder, but the overall plot left a lot to be desired.

Trevor has a memorable villain, but the episode ended up being rather pedestrian. Milagro is similar, though it fares better in the creepiness department and excellent practical effects. The Unnatural is such a terrible episode focusing on the boring sport of baseball. It functions as a fairy tale, but a silly and uninteresting one at that.

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Three of a Kind is another Lone Gunmen episode. Needless to say, I despised it. It’s pointless and frustrating filler. Field Trip is by far the best episode of this whole season. It is about a dangerous hallucinogenic fungi and it’s memorable in imagery while being consistently disorienting in its alternate reality and dreamlike narrative. It has a dark ending and it’s one of the best constructed and most authentic X-Files episodes ever made. Biogenesis is a pretty good finale that is all about aliens meddling in Earth’s evolutions and disasters throughout history. It is well made, but as always inconsequential.